


Hint of a Smile

by krazybaby21



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eventual Werewolf!Draco, M/M, just a concept, possible canon divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 10:35:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13996437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/krazybaby21/pseuds/krazybaby21
Summary: At age eight, they were best friends. At eleven, they'd become strangers. At fourteen, they start anew. And at sixteen, they need each other the most...Rigel Renault has known Draco Malfoy for just about as long as he can remember. The son of an old family friend, their forced play dates quickly became the most enjoyable thing in Rigel's life. No matter what happened, no matter how terrible things got, he always had Draco....until he didn't. After a misunderstanding forces the two apart, Rigel finds himself cripplingly alone as his world begins to crumble around him. But Fate has a funny way of bringing people together, and the red string between Rigel and Draco is growing shorter and shorter....





	Hint of a Smile

Age six. Rigel Renault peered out from behind his mother’s skirts at the pale boy standing between his two equally pale parents, stiff and emotionless as a statue. Then there’s a hand between Rigel’s shoulders―his mother, pushing him forward. “This is Draco Malfoy,” comes her gentle voice from somewhere possibly far above. The pale boy named Draco watches Rigel with careful grey eyes before he smiles. Rigel can’t help but smile back.

 

* * *

 

Age seven. Rigel runs through the halls of him family home, blue eyes scanning for a place to hide. Hearing the patter of bare feet somewhere behind him, he ducks behind a curtain and clamps his hands over the mouth to keep from giggling. The heavy velvet rubbed against his bare skin, the chill of the window behind him making him shiver.

The footsteps stopped a few feet away from where he was hiding, and he dared to peek out. Draco’s back was turned to him, his pale head ducking around the side of a statue. Taking his chance, Rigel abandoned his hiding place and dashed back down the hall. Feet burning on the carpet and heart rushing.

Draco shouted after him, chasing him down. They made it down onto the front lawn before Draco caught up to him, tackling him to the ground. They both went down hard, bruising elbows and knees and faces, but they were laughing. Draco’s pale face was streaked with dirt, grey eyes sparkling like the morning dew that was soaking their clothing.

But they were laughing.

 

* * *

 

Age nine. The skies have been grey for days, and Rigel has been grey too. He sits out on the back steps, staring at nothing, picking at the black robes he’d been forced to wear. The image of the shiny black box with his mother inside won’t leave his mind.

She was too pale, too cold, her lips too red. So serene with her dark, curly hair splayed out on the pillow, her hands folded over her chest. Her collar up higher than she ever would have worn it in life, hiding the dark splotches of the bruise.

There’s a hand on his shoulder then, and a pale boy sits beside him. When Rigel can’t hold back the tears any longer, he turns and buries his face in Draco’s shoulder. They don’t say anything. There’s nothing that can be said.

 

* * *

 

Age ten. Low, keening music spills out from what used to be Rigel’s parents’ room. His father hasn’t ventured outside in weeks. Rigel sits on the staircase, staring at their whorls in the marble. Rigel hasn’t talked to Draco in weeks, and he doesn’t know why. All of his letters are returned unopened. There’s a loud hooting noise and he jumps up, rushing to the kitchen, searching through the piles of letters that the owls have just delivered. He hopes that there is one from Draco, who he hasn’t seen in days. There isn’t.

 

* * *

 

Age eleven. Rigel walks onto the Hogwarts Train alone, chin held high. He ignores the families around him bidding each other goodbye, fighting back against the gnawing loneliness tearing a gaping hole in his chest. He finds an empty cabin and takes his seat, resorting to glaring out the window.

The cat he picked out at Diagon Alley jumps up into his lap, rubbing her head against his stomach. She has the stars in her eyes, and so he named her Caelus.

Minutes pass by in a blur, her fur soft beneath his fingers when he goes to scratch her head, and the door slides open. Rigel glances up and sees a pale boy with grey eyes that had sparkled once, but they were hard and cold as ice now.

Draco Malfoy says nothing when he slams the door shut and moves on.

He still says nothing later when his name is called to be Sorted, but his shoulder collides roughly with Rigel’s as he walks past. The hat slides down Rigel’s nose when his turn comes, and no amount of mental preparation keeps him from jumping when the thing speaks in his mind. When it announces that he’s a Gryffindor, Rigel walks over and sits down beside a boy with bright red hair.

When he meets Draco’s eyes from across the hall, Draco turns away.

 

* * *

 

Age twelve. Rigel runs into Draco at Flourish and Blotts. Draco slams the book that he’s holding shut and rushes off, but not before Rigel sees that he’s ripped a page out of it, a page that he’s shoved into the pocket of his robes.

It’s a few weeks after Christmas when Rigel is walking back from the library and notices water on the ground. He wakes up a month later in the hospital wing, blurry and fuzzy-minded, and he thinks that he sees someone with silver-blonde hair walking away from him. When he closes his eyes and opens them again, the figure is gone.

It isn’t until a few days later when he finally finds out what happens, via two of his classmates who were actively involved in solving the mystery. Harry Potter and Ron Weasley tell Rigel about the attacks on the students, the basilisk, the Chamber of Secrets. Ron brings out the piece of paper they found in Hermione Granger’s petrified hand―a page ripped clean out of a book, talking about a basilisk. There’s a word written on the blank part of the page, apparently explaining how the thing got around the school;  _pipes._

Neither Harry nor Ron seem to have notices that the handwriting isn’t Hermione’s, or that the book that the page was taken from doesn’t belong to the library.

When Rigel is discharged, he catches Draco outside of one of their shared classes and shows him the paper. Draco denies all involvement, of course, but there’s something in his eyes that says otherwise.

 

* * *

 

Age thirteen. Hogsmeade Trips have been opened to third years, but Rigel doesn’t bother to go. His father has been inconsolable since Mother’s death and hardly ventures out of their room, and only responds to Rigel’s words with a blank, booze-ridden stare. So he spends most Hogsmeade weekends in the library, flipping through books older than he and rejoicing in the quiet.

It’s shortly after the first fall of winter when Harry reveals a secret passage into Hogsmeade and drags Rigel into going. Completely sick of the crowds around them, Rigel finds himself by the fence that looks over onto the Shrieking Shack, snowflakes clinging to his eyelashes and the bitter wind burning his cheeks.

Someone calls his name so he turns, and there  _he_  is, all pale skin and grey eyes and dark clothes. It’s strange to see Draco alone these days, what with the group of goons that usually hang around him, but he’s there, smirking.

Rigel doesn’t see the snowball in Draco’s gloved hands until it’s flying through the air, crashing into his shirt in an explosion of wet and cold. Rigel ducks down as another soars over his head, scooping up a ball of his own that ends up connected with the side of Draco’s face. In minutes they’re both soaked and shivering, but Draco is grinning. There’s a lovely pink tinge to his ears and cheeks, and for the first time, it feels like they’re friends again.

After they each leave, separately, of course, they don’t spend time like that again.

Nobody hears of that afternoon, but occasionally Rigel catches Draco’s eye in the halls or in class and they share a secret smile.

Rigel writes to him that summer. For the first time in three years, Draco responds.

 

* * *

 

Age fourteen. Tensions are high as talk of the Triwizard Tournament takes over the school, and the students from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons arrive. The first task comes and goes and the Yule Ball eclipses everything else.

Rigel stares in the mirror, trying to recognize the boy looking back at him. He has no date to the ball and no care to attend it, but he goes anyway. The lights make his head hurt, and the music sets his head spinning, so it isn’t long before he makes his way out to the hall and leans against the wall, savoring the coolness of the stones against his temple.

There’s a low voice at his ear and he opens his eyes to see a pale boy standing in front of him. Rigel figures he must be dreaming when Draco Malfoy kisses him hard, and kisses back with hardly a thought. They don’t speak for a week after that, not until Rigel drags Draco into an empty classroom and kisses him senseless.

 

* * *

 

Age sixteen. Things haven’t been the same since the Ministry finally realized that Voldemort was back. The Renault manor is a ghost town now that Rigel’s father has gone and thrown himself off a bridge, the alcohol finally driving him mad, and Rigel can’t bear to stay there any longer. He’s offered a place with the Weasleys at Grimmauld Place and stays there that bleak summer.

Draco’s stopped replying to his letters again. Rigel can’t find it in him to eat or sleep unless someone forces him, and spends most his time staring out the window, waiting for a letter that will never come. Draco won’t talk to him at school, either, his behavior growing increasingly paranoid and distant.

When Rigel finally gets a letter from Draco telling him to meet at the Room of Requirements, Rigel doesn’t hesitate. He holds Draco when he breaks down and confesses that Voldemort’s forcing him to kill Dumbledore, showing off the jagged scar of a bite mark on his forearm. Rigel hugs him so tightly that he can hardly breath, telling him that they’ll be alright.

When the Death Eaters attack the school, they’re separated. Rigel doesn’t see Draco again.

 

* * *

 

Age seventeen. Hogwarts has been taken over. After one of the new teachers carves the words ‘ _blood traitor’_  into Rigel’s arm for daring to stand up for a muggleborn student, Rigel stars hiding out in the Room of Requirement with the rest of Dumbledore’s army.

He’s there when Harry, Hermione, and Ron sneak in to the school to help. He’s there when the fighting begins and so many people die.

He’s there when Voldemort announces that Harry Potter is dead, dropping a broken body onto the flagstones.

He’s there to see Draco Malfoy standing beside his parents, the first thing he’s seen or heard of Draco in months, and his heart shatters. Their eyes meet across the courtyard, and just for a moment, Draco starts to move for him.

But then there’s a hand on his arm―his father, holding him back. It’s not until Harry leaps to his feet and starts for Voldemort that Draco rushes forward, but not to Rigel―to  _Harry_ , tossing his wand into the air.

Later, when the battle is over and Voldemort has been defeated, Draco finds Rigel standing in the Great Hall, looking at the dead spread about in abject horror. Without a word, Draco hugs Rigel tightly, so tightly that Rigel can hardly breath.

“ _I thought I lost you_ ,” Rigel says, and Draco kisses him right then and there, not caring who sees them, not caring who’s around.

 

* * *

 

Age twenty. The scars of the past are still healing. Some days, Rigel can’t even get out of bed, the despair in him crushing him to the mattress. The only thing that makes it better is waking up to a kiss on his shoulder and a pale arm slung over his waist.

Full moon nights are easier now that Draco’s stopped whining about taking his medicine, and they usually result in the two of them curled up in bed by three a.m., though Rigel still complains about the shedding. They’re almost a normal couple now―as normal as a wizard and a werewolf could be, that is.

 

 

* * *

 

Age thirty-four. Rigel hates wearing tuxedos, but a scratchy collar and uncomfortable shoes are worth it. The chapel is decked out to the extreme, courtesy of Narcissa deciding to plan the wedding, and there are so many people there that Rigel’s hands begin to sweat.

But then he sees Draco coming up the aisle, decked out in silver and looking just as nervous as he, and his chest swells. Narcissa Malfoy actually smiles when she hands off Draco, before going to sit on the pew beside two fussy children. They look nothing like her, nor like their fathers, but she shushes her two grandchildren as the preacher begins to speak.

The wedding was mostly a formality, as Rigel had considered he and Draco to be practically married already, but when the muggles passed the law saying that they could legally marry, Draco had been beside himself.

There are so many faces in the pews there, so many faces missing, but the only one that Rigel can see is Draco. When the time comes for the I do's, Draco’s grey eyes sparkle as his lips turn upward in a smile.

And Rigel can’t help but smile back.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**Author's Note:**  The idea for plotting out a story in flashback fashion such as this, particularly one staring Draco Malfoy and some as-of-then unnamed male protagonist occurred to me a few days ago at around one in the morning, and so yesterday I sat myself down and wrote it out.

I do have a desire to perhaps broaden on this story, go more in depth on their years spent together starting in either third or fourth year, though whether or not I actually do so will depend on both my personal feelings and the reception of this. If you lovely readers wish to read a more in-depth version, I shall do my very best to give it to you.

What do you think? I'd love to hear your feedback in the comment section. :)

~Best wishes from your neighborhood gay, Nick.


End file.
